Observations on sea kayaking from Argyll, Scotland

Discipline is what I’ve been applying to my rolling practice. Yes, I’m still showing up at the pool – perhaps not every week, but enough to keep some sort of moderate momentum going. Alan’s hurt his shoulder (we were warned), so he has been acting as my coach. We’ve been using a paddle float, minus paddle, to learn body movement/hip flick etc, and I made great inroads – on one side at least. Everyone has a good and a bad side, apparently. My bad side is my left side. It’s kind of weird, there’s just not the same “power” there at all. It almost feels like a blockage between my brain and my left hip/leg. So, I have been successfully doing complete rolls up on to my right side using a barely inflated float which, for me, is a big improvement from my early days of terror (see below).

We decided last Friday that it was time to insert a paddle into the equation. At first we attached the float, but that just presented an obstacle as I couldn’t get the paddle all the way round under the boat. Then, upon my capsizing, Alan manoeuvred the paddle such that I would understand what I was supposed to do with it to get myself up. All I can say is that it came as something of a surprise. The whole paddle movement felt foreign and weird – which pretty much sums up a lot of my paddling experience so far. I guess this is just the next phase of my rolling education and practice, as always, will make perfect better.

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